Metro’s board of directors announced a possible fare hike that trumps GM John Catoe’s previously proposed increase. At least bus riders catch a break.
Under the latest proposal unleashed Thursday, rush-hour rail fares could jump by 20 percent on a one-way trip. Looking to score toilet paper from the Tarzhey in Wheaton? The trip from the Silver Spring Metro station could cost $1.65 — a 30-cent increase. The schlep from Glenmont to Shady Grove could run $4.70 — an 80-cent increase.
Parking fees at Metro lots also could increase. Tack on an extra $1.15 for daily parking or an extra $10 for monthly reserved parking.
The current proposal tops one pitched by Metro general manager John Catoe in September. He asked for a 15-percent increase for rail riders, making that rush-hour trip to Tarzhey cost $1.55. The Glenmont-to-Shady Grove schlep would have cost $4.50 under Catoe’s plan.
However, bus riders catch a break under the current proposal. SmartTrip card bearers would pay the usual $1.25 per trip, or $1.35 cash money. Catoe’s plan would have increased bus fares by 25 cents all around.
Metro’s board of directors will host public hearings on the proposed increase starting in November. The fare increases could help the transit agency plug a projected $109 million budget deficit.
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Ya know.. I realized I’ve made the same complaints a hundred times, and I’m doing again – so don’t read it if ya don’t want to hear it :-) Why are we talking about fare increases BEFORE all the carpets that cost a fortune to clean & replace every 5 years are ripped out? And why BEFORE any escalator less than 12 feet tall is taken out of service? On a similar note, it’s been noted in many places including this very blog, that the largest cost in a transit system is the labor. Why then, at rush hour, do 6 car trains come by every 2 minutes instead of 8 car trains every 2.5 minutes (2.66666 minutes to be precisely the same capacity)?? It’s the same capacity, a minor difference in passenger waiting times, and a 25% savings in conductor salaries. I mean.. I must be missing something, because if it was this easy to save money you’d *hope* it would have been done by now… but I dunno, no explaination has satisfied me yet.
As for the bus fare, I’m torn… the social democrat in me likes that they wouldn’t go up as much, as generally buses serve lower income communities – due to other problems in our social structure. But on the other hand, buses are already more heavily subsidized than the subway.. the operating costs are huge since the employee to customer ratio is so much worse… If we WERE happy with the relative levels of subsidy for each prior to the rate increases, then we should increase both by an equal proportion.
In India, your employer is generally expected to pay the cost of busing you to work if you have a half-decent job. In fact, they even have company buses that pick people up and drop them off every day. Just thought I’d throw that out there as a counter-point to any “OMG we must provide subsidized busing at any cost!” arguments. There are other models, including privatized ones.
There’s no such thing as a free ride (if I could take the liberty of badly butchering Milton Friedman’s insightful quote), and, eventually, playing games to distort the true cost of the metro (it’s easier to hide tax allocation than fare increases) is going to stop working. It is not an unfair thing to have the people who actually use the system be responsible for paying for at least a good part of it.
(My wife commutes to work on the metro, and I use it somewhat frequently as well. This fare increase will indeed impact us.)
The problem with the fare increase is how it is allocated — soak the suburbs. The Maryland and Virginia representatives on the Metro Board should refuse to vote for any increase other than one that increases all charges, including parking, the same percentage. They should also do some serious examination of what Metro costs can be reduced. Metro appears to be one of our least efficient government services. Also, we should avoid establishing a “dedicated funding source” for Metro. That would eliminate a lot of the limited oversight we have now of Metro’s operations. At least now Metro has to get its funding approved annually, which gives public officials a chance to impose some oversight.